How Social Media Listening Helps Havas Media Ukraine Develop Effective Strategies for Their Clients

Havas Media Ukraine, founded in 2005, is part of the global Havas network, one of the largest communication groups in the world. Havas has been in the market for almost 200 years and operates in over 100 countries.

Havas Media Ukraine works daily to create meaningful changes for brands, businesses, and people. The company actively participates in industry initiatives, sets standards, and implements innovations in media and advertising.

With the onset of the full-scale invasion, Havas Media Ukraine, like most Ukrainian companies, faced significant challenges. Traditional media industry research disappeared, and the data used to build strategies and form hypotheses became obsolete.

These challenges prompted the activation of efforts and the implementation of new approaches. That’s when Havas Media Ukraine turned to social media listening to ensure a steady flow of up-to-date information for their clients and assist in preparing media strategies.

We spoke with Olena Bochenkova, Managing Director, and Kateryna Liashenko, Head of Media Research, to learn more about how social media listening helps create effective strategies for their clients.

What services does Havas Media Ukraine provide to its clients?

Havas Media Ukraine offers a wide range of services. We prepare media strategies for clients, conduct category and competitive analysis, market and audience research, model and forecast indicators, work on media positioning, and manage the placement process.

We always strive to build cooperation with clients to create the best and most convenient experience for them.

When did you realize that social media listening was essential?

Due to the full-scale invasion, all traditional monitoring and industry research disappeared. We lost access to essential data, which hindered our ability to help clients make informed decisions.

“Social media listening is not an additional tool as previously thought. It is one of the main tools for understanding a brand’s image and consumer perception.”

– Olena Bochenkova

We analyzed the market for monitoring tools, compared pricing policies and source coverage, and examined functionalities and customer support. We decided to choose YouScan. 

“We realized that YouScan would be the most reliable partner for us. After more than a year of cooperation, we have trust and effective synergy with your team and the tool.

– Kateryna Liashenko

Let’s explore a case where your client exited the russian market. How did YouScan’s social listening help you plan the media strategy for the client?

This story is about a company that exited the aggressor’s market after the full-scale invasion began. This process was slower than management expected. 

At this point, we monitored online media mentions to see if people were discussing the company's exit from russia on social platforms.

With YouScan’s help, we collected and analyzed all mentions of our client’s brand and its competitors in the media. Through the discussions, we understood that the audience did not identify the brand as russian. We monitored the data both retrospectively and in real-time.

In addition to the brand itself, we monitored mentions of the manufacturer since the media often refer to manufacturers by name. YouScan helped us find that negative mentions did not increase compared to “calm” periods.

We continued to monitor the situation and collaborated with the brand’s PR agency. Together, we decided whether preemptive crisis communication was necessary.

Thanks to social media listening, we understood that the Ukrainian audience calmly perceived the company’s slow exit from the aggressor’s market, and there were no adverse reactions – this was the most important thing. We then used social listening to analyze the audience’s perception of our initial PR activities.

Using this case as a foundation, we worked with the client to develop a strategy that restored their media presence smoothly and without negative backlash. We relied entirely on YouScan’s data to inform all our recommendations during this process.

How has YouScan changed your processes?

Working with YouScan, we realized we had a significant gap in social media data. For example, our media advertising monitoring hardly covered social media activities. In contrast, YouScan collects significantly more mentions, which automatically fall into the “commerce” category, simplifying their identification among the total mentions.

Another feature is the ability to monitor not only our clients’ brand activities but also those of competitors. It has become easier for us to track competitive activities, PR efforts, and SMM strategies of competing brands.

YouScan’s audience analytics works very effectively. This functionality greatly aids our work in the media agency. We can identify consumer needs, quickly analyze their demographics, and see how they engage with bloggers.

A very valuable tool is aspect analysis, which analyzes various characteristics of products or services that consumers criticize or praise, making it easy to identify drivers and barriers. A significant advantage in aspect analysis and beyond is Insights Copilot, a social media listening assistant based on ChatGPT. Now, there is no need to review thousands of mentions manually. Insights Copilot quickly analyzes everything independently.

“YouScan provides us with the foundation to form and test hypotheses. 

– Kateryna Liashenko

What is the value of YouScan for you and your clients?

The value lies in the prompt data on real people’s opinions — social media users. We see what the audience thinks, how they formulate their thoughts, and what they like or dislike.

We recommend media agencies consider social media listening. It offers comprehensive analytics about consumers, brand image, and the competitive environment, all gathered in one place. 

Even though most traditional media market research has returned, the social media listening tool remains one of our primary sources of information. 

We lacked YouScan to fully understand the picture. Therefore, such a service is essential for understanding brand image and development and for launching new products.